hermit's chronicles

Lakshmi with Bhagavan  Bhagavan's devotee 20th July, 1948 (48) THE DELIVERANCE OF LAKSHMI, THE COW In my letter to you under the caption “Worship of the Cow”, I described to you the grandeur of Lakshmi, the queen of the cows, and the amount of regard Sri Bhagavan had for her. To that queen, as for His own mother, Sri Bhagavan on Friday the 18th instant gave Videha Mukti (deliverance from the body). That morning when I went to the Asramam, I was told that Lakshmi was seriously ill and would not survive the day. So, I went straight to the cow shed, without seeing Sri Bhagavan even. The room built for the calves was vacated, cleaned and Lakshmi was given a bed of straw to lie down upon. As it was Friday, she was as usual decorated with turmeric paste, vermilion mark on the forehead and a garland of flowers round the neck and horns. Venkataratnam was sitting by the side fanning her. Lakshmi was lying down with her majestic look spre...

Bhagavan and Lakshmi Bhagavan with his 'favourite daughter' and other cows at the Asramam 24th July, 1948 (23) THE PREVIOUS HISTORY OF LAKSHMI, THE COW At 4 O’clock yesterday afternoon, a Tamil youth came into the Hall. On seeing him, a devotee said that the youth was the grandson of the man who had presented Lakshmi the Cow to the Asramam. “I see,” said Sri Bhagavan. “Does he know that Lakshmi passed away?” That youth said, “I have just heard it, Swami. When I went to the cow-shed to see Lakshmi I was informed of it. I have come here after seeing the tomb.” On enquiry, the youth said, “I belong to a village called Kannamangalam. It is about 40 miles from here. My grandfather Arunachalam Pillai wanted to present a good milch cow to Sri Bhagavan and so, in 1926, he brought Lakshmi here along with her mother. Lakshmi was then barely six months old. I also came along with them. I was quite young then. From that time onwards I always look up Lakshmi whenever I c...

Cow Lakshmi on Pongal Day Bhagavan with Cow Lakshmi in the gaosala Suri Nagamma 16th January, 1946 (23) WORSHIP OF THE COW You know yesterday was the animal Festival of Cows (Mattu Pongal). On that day, all over the country, domestic animals are decorated and fed with Pongal. In the Asramam also yesterday morning, several varieties of sweetmeats were prepared and, with garlands made of those sweetmeats, puja to Nandi was performed by drawing ornamental lines with lime powder before the cowshed, by tying plantain trees around the pillars, by hanging garlands of green leaves, by bathing all the cows, by placing  tilakam  (vermilion marks) on their foreheads and garlands around their necks, and by feeding them with Pongal. Finally puja was performed to the chanting of mantras and the breaking of coconuts. Cow Lakshmi is the queen amongst the cows, is she not? You must see her grandeur! Her...

Nigerian author Chinua Achebe writes about this wonderful word, made famous by folklore, that resonates so well with Vedantic wisdom. Uwa-t'uwa: world inside a world inside a world, without end.

"Too soon ripe is too soon rotten." - Monica Ali in Brick Lane

[On the vandalisation of the Bamiyan Buddhas by the Taliban...] Seeing the Buddha statue plundered The loony saint danced. ' Sever his head Let smile on his fallen face fly away – eyebrow, chin be blown, Let lovely visage turn ugly, the eye turn blind who’s it – the one bound in physical form, break free. Break that wall, which Forbids us from light and air Can it make the bedrock of some water source Find out; (No, not for a shrine!) The stone which stole our sky from us Is not to be hailed as Guru. The many bits of the statue, Make them the path you tread on Annihilate, humiliate May the veiled Guru blossom at once. - S Manjunath [ Translated by Deepa Ganesh] From Srinigannda: Contemporary Kannada Writings edited by Vivek Shanbhag                                                       ...

From Everything And Nothing , a short story about Shakespeare by Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986): “There was no one in him… In London he found the profession to which he was predestined, that of the actor, who on a stage plays at being another before a gathering of people who play at taking him for that other person.”... “His histrionic talents brought him a singular satisfaction… but once the last verse had been declaimed and the last dead man withdrawn from the stage, the hated flavour of unreality returned to him… Thus hounded, he took to imagining other heroes and other tragic fables… the soul that inhabited him was Caesar, who disregards the augur’s admonition, and Juliet, who abhors the lark, and Macbeth, who converses on the plain with the witches who are also Fates… For twenty years he persisted in that controlled hallucination, but one morning he was suddenly gripped by the tedium and the terror of being so many kings who die by the sword and so many suffering lovers ...